A couple of months ago I bought a laptop, which has been really great. I’ve been using it as a way of changing my environment while I work, but I haven’t been careful enough when it comes to where I’m sitting. I’ve been sitting on the couch with my laptop on the coffee table, or on my lap. Bad.

I developed some pretty bad back pain, and couldn’t get rid of it. I was lucky to have an amazing massage therapist (Alison Tunley) in my rolodex, and told her to show me no mercy, and just fix it. She asked me to show her how I’d been sitting during the day, and just shook her head and gave me the “tsk tsk” I was expecting. She did a great job relieving the awful pain between my shoulder blades, and gave me some tips on how to stretch and strengthen my back.

I realize it’s not possible to go to the gym every single day, there are tons of excuses not to go, most of which are usually valid… I decided the best thing for me to do would be pick up a set of resistance bands, and do two sets of 10 minute back exercises during the day, in the morning and in the afternoon.

Learned a few things that I already knew, but didn’t actually put into practice until I had to:
1. Get a massage at least a few times a year. It is absolutely essential and worth every cent.
2. Take breaks from the computer. If you work from home, spend a few minutes tidying up, check the mail, stretch. If you’re in an office, get up grab some water, stretch, water the plants – anything.
3. Don’t ignore exercising because you “don’t have time”. Make time. It doesn’t have to be an hour at the gym, pick up some free weights or resistance bands and make sure to at least do some exercise every day. Attend yoga weekly for added benefits.

The main point and probably most important in this article is about reading through job posts carefully.

Ironically I found myself scanning this article about reading through the job posting carefully. I’ve been overloading myself with tons of articles lately and have adapted this “scanning” to virtually everything I’ve been reading, including recipes (no disasters… yet).

I think there’s two pieces to this, people that are posting jobs need to put the essay-style writing aside, but at the same time, this is test #1. Can you read a paragraph? Can you read 2 or 3? Can you remember what it said and follow the instructions that may not be in bullet points?

A friend of mine recently posted to a few job boards looking for a developer. She outlined exactly what was absolutely required, and what would “be nice to have”. About 5% actually had the skills she absolutely required. She re-posted with the name of the job along the lines of “If you don’t have *SKILL* do NOT apply.” Hundreds of responses later, she gave up and removed the post. My favourite were the ones that wrote her and said “Hey, you never responded to me, I replied the last time, I know I don’t have all the skills you wanted, but let’s work together anyway!”

I wonder how many of you read this whole posting, and how many scanned it?